


What A Ship Is

by Sapphy, SapphyWatchesYouSleep (Sapphy)



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Crossover, Drunken Ramblings, Freedom, Gen, True Love, ships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-17
Updated: 2012-04-17
Packaged: 2017-11-03 20:32:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/Sapphy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/SapphyWatchesYouSleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Now there you’re wrong, Captain. Sail might be what a ship needs. But it’s not what a ship is. What a ship is, is freedom.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	What A Ship Is

**Author's Note:**

> This is what a day in bed with a laptop and a subscription to netflix will do for you. Enjoy.

There’ve been women, so very many women, and a not inconsiderable number of men, and a few he can only classify as other. But what none of them will ever believe is that none of them will ever matter to him, not really. He’s fond enough of some of them, might even go so far as to say he has feelings for them. But his heart belongs to another.

He was little more than a child the first time he saw her, but even then, even before he knew what real love was, he knew she and he were meant to be together. She was his destiny, and he was the captain she’d been waiting for. And between them they would burn the whole world.

 

The pub was called the Sailors rest. It was not, in fact, particularly restful and it catered to a very specific kind of seaman. Pirates. The Doctor was starting to regret his decision to stop here for supper.

The Doctor prided himself on his ability to get on with anyone, regardless of colour creed or species, and of course he was all in favour of pirates. He just preferred to be in favour of them from a distance.

The main problem, he mused, was that the books never mentioned the smell. Or the table manners. Of course he wasn’t too happy with their habit of indiscriminate killing either, but he tried not to think about that. If there was one thing he’d learnt from River Song, it was that the best way to deal with killing was to ignore it unless is was happening a) very near at hand, b) to someone he liked or c) on a wide enough scale to be classed as genocide. As the pirates were being, for pirates, fairly well behaved in the violence department, he tried to put that bit of their job out of his mind. Which just left the table manners and the smell.

The one thing he did like about pirates were their hats. This incarnation was something of an aficionado of hats and pirates really did get some of the best he’d ever seen.

A slight man in a leather tricorn, and sporting some of the most elaborate hair the Doctor had ever seen, sat down beside him, a bottle of something brown and almost definitely alcoholic clutched like a prize in his hand.

“You… are not a pirate,” he said, waving the bottle vaguely in the Doctor’s direction.

“Oh, Hello! No, I’m not. Well not at the moment. I’m the Doctor. Hello!”

He proffered a hand (which he’d found was generally an acceptable greeting in most planets and situations). It was taken by one of the other man’s and held just a mite too long. There might also have been a caress, but the doctor decided the give the man the benefit of the doubt and assume the caressing was accidental and the timing due to the brown liquid, the smell of which was starting to make his eyes water.

“Captain Jack Sparrow. Pleased to meet you.” The man’s voice was husky, his accent indeterminate and he slurred when he spoke. If it weren’t for the sharp gleam of intelligence, the Doctor would easily have believed the man was as drunk as he appeared.

“A captain. What’s your ship called? I’m a bit of train-spotter when it comes to ships.”

The Captain shook his head at the mention of trainspotting (that was the trouble with the TARDIS. She translated by nationality, race, species, anything you could think of. But not era. It was a major design flaw in a time machine, and one he’s been meaning to fix ever since that trouble in new Carthage) but the one thing that the Doctor really liked about Pirates (apart from the hats), the thing which almost made up for the smell and the table manners, was that they never turned down an opportunity to talk ships. They were the only people he’d ever met who loved their ships as much as he loved the TARDIS.

“You don’t have the look of a sailor, mate,” the Captain commented, tipping his head, birdlike, to the side. “Not dirty enough. Not scarred enough. You’ve never laid hand to sail in your life.”

The Doctor grinned. “Not in this body no. But then my ship doesn’t have sails.”

“And what be the use of a ship with no sails? A ship with no sails is no ship at all.”

“Now there you’re wrong Captain. Sail might be what a ship needs. But it’s not what a ship is. What a ship is, is freedom.”

The Captain’s grin was broad. “I’ll drink to that mate.”

 

“A woman.” The Captain’s voice was flat with disbelief.

“Yes, really. A woman.”

“Does this happen a lot where you come from?”

“I only wish. No, I think that is probably the only time in all of history that that has ever happened.”

“So your ship became a woman, for the only time ever, and you didn’t…”

“Didn’t? Oh.” The Doctor blushed. “No. I don’t much. Or ever really. Not since. Well that doesn’t matter. But no. I didn’t. There wasn’t really time.”

Jack shook his head. “That’s cruel mate. To give her to you and not give you time to enjoy it.” He shook his head. “Damned cruel.”

The Doctor nodded morosely (though he wasn’t entirely sure his and Jack’s ideas of enjoyment were the same). “I’ll drink to that,” he said, and raised his tankard to the Captain.

 

“So you don’t? No women. No men. Nothing?” Jack sounded incredulous.

“I’m an old man Jack, far far older than I look. But there is a woman. Sort of. It’s complicated.”

“Not a fan of complicated myself,” Jack replied, waving his bottle expansively. “I hear it works for some though. But me, I’ve got my Pearl. Any other women are temporary and I make sure they know so straight away. It saves misunderstandings.”

The Doctor grinned. “River would be so furious if I tried to dump her for the TARDIS. I might even try it some time. I love that woman when she’s angry. Well except for when she’s shooting things. And sometimes even then.”

“You cannot trust a woman with a gun, not for damn moment,” Jack stated, and the Doctor suspected there was long experience speaking. “But by God it’s a magnificent sight.”

He raised his bottle. “To women with guns.”

The Doctor raised his tankard and took a swig.

 

“How old.”

“What?”

“You said you’re older than you look. How old?”

The Doctor took a swig. He was starting to get the hang of pirate drinking. The trick, as far as he could tell, was to be drunk before you even started drinking. He wasn’t entirely sure how they managed this.

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

“You, my friend, have no idea the things I’m prepared to believe. I sail a cursed ship with a compass that doesn’t point north. I’ve fought against the living dead and the Kraken and even Davey Jones himself. I’ll believe anything, mate.”

“Well officially speaking, at the moment I’m giving it out as 1108. Honestly though, I don’t know. It’s probably more than that. After the time war I picked an age and every time I felt like it I added a year.”

“That’s a fine system. Not unlike the one I use myself. Not that I’ve much call for telling people my age. I count the years when I’m apart from the Pearl. As long as we’re together though, what does it matter?”

“It must be hell, being parted from her.”

“We always find each other. It must be hell being that old.”

“It has its moments.”

Jack raised his bottle. “To silver linings.”

“And the light at the end of the tunnel.” Glass and tankard clinked.

 

“You could come with me.”

They were slumped against the tavern wall, the Doctor wearing Jack’s hat, Jack’s dreadlocked head cushioned comfortably on the Doctor’s shoulder. Jack stirred, too far in his cups to respond properly, but still listening.

“Come with me Captain. I’ve had a Captain Jack with me before, you know. Alright it didn’t work out all that well, he got killed then resurrected and now he’s a giant head floating in a tank of gas, but this time it will be different. What do you say, eh Captain. Up for seeing the stars? All of space and time, all open to us. Sound fun?”

Jack stirred a little and made a half-hearted attempt to sit up. “I’ve got me Pearl mate,” he slurred. “Don’t matter how fancy your ship is, or how vast your ocean, I’m not leaving the Pearl. She’s my ship. Savvy?”

The Doctor did.


End file.
